NEAFL Round 7
Sydney Swans Reserves v Gold Coast Suns Reserves
Saturday 14th May 2011 1.50pm
Lakeside Oval
The first tangible benefit of the expanded NEAFL competition comes to fruition when the Swans Reserves take on the Suns Reserves in the Swans' first crossover game against a Northern Conference side. Based on the assumption that the Giants would have joined the AFL Canberra competition had the status quo remained in place from 2010, this is the first chance of playing an "AFL calibre" side in the Gold Coast.
As you can imagine with the majority of players being recruited in the past 2 to 3 years, the Suns Reserves are a very young side. The Swans will need to adjust their game to a different style of football: instead of coming up against the mature bodies of the Canberra teams, the Swans will have to counter the pace and youthfulness of the Suns.
Eastern Conference Ladder
Northern Conference Ladder
Team Played Wins Losses Draws Byes %Won For Against Percentage Reserves 4 4 0 0 0 100.00% 431 101 426.73% Ainslie 3 2 1 0 1 66.67% 307 260 118.08% GWS 3 2 1 0 1 66.67% 237 226 104.87% Queanbeyan 4 2 2 0 0 50.00% 407 401 101.50% ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eastlake 3 1 2 0 1 33.33% 242 254 95.28% Tuggeranong 3 0 3 0 1 0.00% 169 327 51.68% Belconnen 4 0 4 0 0 0.00% 220 549 40.07%
Past Meetings
Team Played Wins Losses Draws For Against Percentage Pts NT Thunder 6 6 0 0 744 440 169.09% 24 Mt Gravatt 5 4 1 0 511 388 131.70% 16 Gold Coast Suns 6 4 2 0 536 455 117.80% 16 Broadbeach 5 3 2 0 499 507 98.42% 12 Redland 5 2 3 0 590 504 117.06% 8 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brisbane Lions 5 2 3 0 479 431 111.14% 8 Aspley 5 2 3 0 457 497 91.95% 8 Labrador 6 2 4 0 464 542 85.61% 8 Morningside 5 2 4 0 507 734 69.07% 8 Southport 5 1 4 0 330 514 64.20% 4
This will be the first meeting between these two sides.
Recent Form
Reserves
R1 BYE
R2 WIN Away Eastlake 83-33
R3 WIN Home Belconnen 138-29
R4 BYE
R5 WIN Home Tuggeranong 123-12
R6 WIN Away GWS 87-27
Gold Coast
R1 LOSS Home Mt Gravatt 71-99
R2 LOSS Away NT Thunder 72-81
R3 WIN Home Aspley 112-79
R4 WIN Away Labrador 90-58
R5 WIN Away Mt Gravatt 88-75
R6 WIN Home Brisbane Lions Reserves 103-63
Last Round
Reserves 12.15 (87) defeated GWS 3.9 (27)
Both teams struggled with the early start and extremely cold conditions, missing plenty of chances going forward. The Swans managed to get a kick on late in the third and slammed on 6 goals in the last quarter while keeping the Giants scoreless. Luke Parker was the star with a dominant display in the midfield and up forward, finishing with 2 goals. Defenders Lewis Johnston and Chris McKaigue continued their excellent early season form with a large number of spoils on their GWS opponents.
Goal Kickers: White 3, Haren E.Moody Dennis-Lane 2 Parker Bevan McNeil
Best Players: Parker Johnston McKaigue Thompson Roberts-Thomson McNeil
Brisbane Lions Reserves 9.9 (63) defeated by Gold Coast Suns Reserves 14.19 (103)
A dynamic first quarter where the Suns kicked 5 goals to nil laid the foundations for their comfortable 40 point victory over arch rivals Brisbane. Young ruckman Tom Nicholls gave their impressive midfield consistent first use of the ball, with the likes of Dion Prestia, Harley Bennell, Marc Lock and Jacob Gillbee benefiting immensely from his tapwork. Up forward, Alik Magin took full advantage of his teammates' dominance by kicking all 3 of his goals in that dominant first quarter. Tagger Maverick Weller kept the Lions gun recruit Jared Polec relatively quiet.
Goal Kickers: Magin 3 Gillbee Jolly 2 Bennell Fowler Weller Nicholls Lock May Court
Best Players: Nicholls Prestia Stanley Bennell Weller Hine
Team List (Speculative)
Listed players
Changes
# Name Games Goals Votes Notes 1 Mark SEABY 4 2 3 Senior emergency 7 Brett MEREDITH 3 2 0 8 Trent DENNIS-LANE 4 12 0 9 Nick MALCESKI 0 0 0 Subject to fitness test Friday 10 Daniel CURRIE 4 2 2 18 Jesse WHITE 1 3 0 23 Lewis JOHNSTON 4 0 15 Senior emergency 28 Dylan McNEIL 4 2 5 33 Jarred MOORE 2 3 6 Senior emergency 35 Campbell HEATH 0 0 0 Welcome back Cambo! 36 Chris McKAIGUE 4 0 11 42 Paul BEVAN 1 1 0 43 Eugene KRUGER 4 1 0 44 Max OTTEN 3 0 0 46 Ben HAREN 4 8 0
In: Meredith (Non-playing senior emergency), Malceski (injury), Moore (Senior demotion), Heath (injury)
Out: Byron Sumner (NFI - probably another ninja injury), Luke Parker (Senior promotion), Matthew Spangher (injury), Lewis Roberts-Thomson (Senior promotion)
Options galore for Playfair from a very flexible squad. Moore will slot back into the midfield in an attempt to rebuild his match fitness after his sub spell last week. Meredith and maybe Malceski to add some class to the midfield. Bevan played forward last week but has the option to go to defence to counter some of the dangerous Suns forwards. White to spearhead the attack with TDL, Haren and maybe Heath as his main support.
Academy Players/Topups (to be updated)
Changes
# Name Games Goals Votes Notes 47 Jackson POTTER 2 0 0 48 Blake GUTHRIE 2 0 0 50 James BRAIN 4 0 0 51 Jack LYNCH 2 0 0 52 Mitch THOMPSON 3 0 5 Named in bests for 2 consecutive weeks 55 Andrew MOODY 1 0 0 56 Eric MOODY 1 2 0 57 Daniel ROBINSON 1 1 0
In: Potter, Guthrie, Lynch, Robinson
Out: Nathan Kenny, Matthew Lemme, Mark Mura
No Kane Murphy (much to Primmy's disappointment) but the first 3 in's have a lot of experience as topups.
Reserves leading goalkickers
- Trent Dennis-Lane 12
- Ben Haren 8
- Kane Murphy 6
For full list: 2011 Leading goalkickers - RWOwiki
Reserves leading votegetters
- Lewis Johnston 15
- Nathan Gordon 14
- Chris McKaigue 11
For full list: 2011 Best votes - RWOwiki
Talking points
- Dennis-Lane - Leading goalkicker in the reserves but yet no votes in the best players list. This would indicate that the coaches are looking for more than just his goalkicking ability, in particular, his tackling and chasing.
- Johnston - Played a great game against a promising forward in Josh Bruce last week, but he'll come up against this greatest challenge so far in his nascent stint as a defender.
- McNeil - Likely to attract a tagger, probably Weller, due to his superb in-and-under work at the stoppages. How he handles the close attention will be a big factor in the result.
- Heath - Given the good form our of key defenders, Heath could be eased back as a forward, a position he was used in towards the tail end of last season with some success kicking 3 goals in one of the finals.
Gold Coast squad
- 1. Marc LOCK - Tall midfielder, captained their VFL side last year
- 4. Maverick WELLER - Tagger
- 6. Alik MAGIN - Small forward
- 8. Luke RUSSELL
- 10. Lewis MOSS - Tall forward
- 12. Jack STANLAKE - Tall utility
- 13. Hayden JOLLY - Kicked the winning goal in the NAB Cup against us. Ball magnet.
- 16. Rory THOMPSON - Ruckman
- 20. Josh TOY - Defender
- 23. Charlie DIXON - Tall forward
- 28. Roland AHCHEE
- 29. Taylor HINE
- 31. Jack STANLEY
- 33. Rex LIDDY
- 37. Harley BENNELL - Number #2 pick in last year's draft. Midfield/forward
- 38. Joel WILKINSON
- 49. Jacob GILLBEE - Forward
- 51. Jake CRAWFORD
- 52. Joel TIPPETT - Tall ruckman/forward
Topups
- Cameron BERNASCONI (Mt Gravatt)
- Brody HABERFIELD (Southport)
- Mitchell HOPKINS (?)
- David JAMES (Southport)
In: Bernasconi, Dixon, Haberfield, Hopkins, Toy, Wilkinson, James
Out: Tyrone Alderson, Ryder Court, Matthew Fowler, Ryan Maetam, Steven May, Tom Nicholls, Dion Prestia
Look out for Harley Bennell as he has already accumulated a few highlights in his 4 AFL games. Dropped for disciplinary and not form reasons, he's the danger man in the Suns midfield. This squad also has its fair share of giants with Crawford, Dixon, Lock, Moss, Stanlake, Stanley, Thompson, Tippett all listed as over 190cm
Summary
Gold Coast's results thus far in the Northern Conference indicate they are one of the better teams and will be challenging for the NEAFL title overall. Their coach Shaun Hart has managed to gel together a well drilled unit, despite having many ins and outs due to Bluey McKenna's predilection of rotating his youngsters through the seniors. Having won 4 on the trot and having swept aside the Lions Reserves with relative ease, they will be coming into this match full of confidence.
The Reserves' defence has been one of the highlights of the season so far with just over a 100 points conceded in total over their 4 matches. While a lot of this is due to our defenders, one cannot overlook the big advantage afforded to them due to the dominance of our midfield. It will be interesting to see how our defenders cope if the Suns midfield manage to get on top of ours during the game. In a similar vein, some of our midfielders may find themselves with a run-with role, a task they would not have been asked to undertake many times during a Reserves game. One would also suspect that the key men in our midfield, like McNeil, Sumner and Meredith will be under close watch from the Suns taggers.
It's an extra early start and at an uncomfortable venue, but given that this is the one of the most challenging opponents the Reserves have faced in a while, everyone who has the time to come down and watch should do so! Come and get a gauge on how well developed our youngsters are in comparison to one of the best batches of young players in the AFL.
As for the result, with a few injuries hitting the Swans group recently, the squad isn't as strong as it was a few weeks ago and with the Suns having more listed players in their squad; 19 to the Swans' 15, they should start slight favourites.
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Originally Posted by ugg
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